The Problem with Dragon Age

Edit: Since this post was written in the heat of the moment and not up to my usual standards, I’ve done a new review of the ending. I figured I’d leave this one up though in the interest of full disclosure, and for anyone who’s curious as to what my first drafts usually look like.

So I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately. I’ve found that I’m just having a hard time concentrating on my writing and my blog. Maybe it’s the soul crushing loneliness. Or maybe it’s the fact that my recurrence of depression has me living in a bottomless pit of despair. Regardless of the reason, I just haven’t been writing like I should. To try and pick myself up I bought Dragon Age: Inquisition. I never planned on buying this game, but after seeing so many people recommend it and so many positive reviews, I finally decided to get it.

I should have remembered that Mass Effect 3 had glowing reviews too…

I was hoping to do a review of it, like I’ve done for The Walking Dead series, praising its storytelling and characters. But what I got was even better…

I got a bad ending.

So thank you BioWare! Thank you for giving me an ending that’s somehow EVEN WORSE than Mass Effect 3. You have given me reason to exist once again.

All That Matters is the Ending:

Dragon Age Inquisition

Now let me preface this whole review by saying that I have something like 60 hours logged in Inquisition. It’s a good game. And I totally understand why the game is getting such great reviews from everyone. Just like Mass Effect 3 though, it’s the ending that totally derails the whole thing. The main plot is competently written, the characters are amazing as usual, and the huge expansive environments really let you experience Thedas is a way the Dragon Age: Origins never allowed. Yet the ending…

The ending is somehow even worse than that of Mass Effect 3.

“But John, how can that be!?” I hear you ask, “Mass Effect 3’s ending was without a doubt the worst finale in the history of video games!”

Well… it’s worse because it doesn’t even try.

As harsh as I was on Mass Effect 3’s ending, on some level I still respected what they did. They dreamed big. And really the main problem with the ending was the last 10 minutes of the game with the Star Child and his Architect-like explanation of the Reapers.

In fact I’m surprised BioWare didn’t get sued for lifting their ending straight from Matrix Reloaded.

As many wise people have said over the eons:

If you’re going to fail, fail spectacularly!

For all its failings, at least Mass Effect 3 tried. It tried hard. The finale in the smoking ruins of Earth’s cities is still one of my favorite moments in gaming, and ignoring the last ten minutes, it’s a fine ending to the series.

Dragon Age: Inquisition on the other hand…well it doesn’t even try. It fails so pitifully that I almost hate to tear it down further. Mass Effect 3 was a worthy opponent, an ending whose many grand mistakes demanded a long detailed analysis. Inquisition practically apologizes to you for having such a bad ending, before immediately offering to sell you a better one. Ten, twenty years down the road people will look back and remember the hilarious aftermath of Mass Effect 3’s terrible ending, and the otherwise amazing game that led to that ending. Ten, twenty years down the road people will look back on Inquisition and say… “What game was that again?”

So why is it so utterly forgettable? Well…

1. There’s No Payoff

Let me just say this… I never really got into the plot of Inquisition once “The Elder One” was revealed to be Corypheus (really Bioware, Corpse? That’s the best anagram you could come up with?) Up until the attack on Haven I felt like this story had the potential to go anywhere, who was the mysterious voice in the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. What was the purpose behind the Divine’s “sacrifice”, what was the ultimate plan behind the rifts? This story could have gone in so many epic directions, told us strange and wonderful tales.

Instead it went with the old and incredibly tired megalomaniac aspiring to Godhood route.

Sorry Corypheus, but I think that whole schtick has been done before…

Now I’ll be the first to admit that there’s nothing new under the sun, every story has been told. The challenge of writing a good story lies in telling the same old crap in new and interesting ways. Bioware failed to do so. All of Corypheus’s dialogue sounds like it came straight out of an “Antagonist Dialogue for Dummies” book complete with the deep, gravely voice. He wants to become a god and remake the world in his own image…well get in line buddy, there’s long, long line of people ahead of you that already had that idea.

Even after Corypheus proved to be a disappointing reveal, I was hoping maybe his plan was imaginative or would reveal something interesting about his character. Did he learn something when he was lost in the Fade? Was there a secret to Godhood? Was he behind Red Lyrium and its corruptive properties?

We may never know because his whole plan seems to be “enter the fade” and… well that’s it. Nothing else. There’s only a Step A, with Corypheus apparently hoping that the rest will somehow take care of itself. Yeah, that went real well for you the last time you tried it, Magister. Oh did I forget to mention he was one of the original Tevinter Magister’s the penetrated the Golden City, turning it black and unleashing the Darkspawn? Well he is. That’s the same plan he has now, because surely the same plan couldn’t fail twice right?

And yet despite the fact this same plan has already failed before, everyone is convinced it’s going to work. Why? If he didn’t become a god from penetrating the Golden City, why would entering the Black City herald any different results? The better explanation is that his tampering with the fade might unleash powers that will destroy the world, but everyone acts like that’s the less likely option, despite literally no one explaining why.

I will admit his generic plan fits rather well this is generic character and generic appearance.

Corypheus, apart from being utterly forgettable, is also just really terrible at his job. He’s built up as this all-powerful demigod and yet he fails every single time we meet him. The whole reason this plot even begins is because the all-powerful sphere of magic slips from his hand. Yes, the inciting incident of this entire story can be summed up as “Oops…butter fingers!”

Next he attacks Haven, a tiny little village utterly isolated from the rest of the world. Yet despite having an army of thousands, magical abilities powerful enough to rip open the sky, and a fucking dragon, he can’t even do that properly. Then he marches into the Arbor Wilds in search of the Well of Sorrows, and fails to get there before the Inquisitor despite having a head start. Oh, and we only know he’s heading there because he takes his entire fucking army with him. Why not just take a small team? You’re a demigod after all, why did you need thousands of soldiers?

And while we’re on the subject of the Well of Sorrows…why wasn’t this your plan A, Corypheus? If the Well of Sorrows could have taken you into the fade, why rip open a giant green sky hole and announce to everyone your intentions? He could have gone into the Arbor Wilds and taken the the Well of Sorrows before anyone even knew he existed.

And finally we get to the final boss fight? Finally, Corypheus has a chance to show us all the power at his disposal…

And he’s basically a mediocre Mage. The unstoppable Demigod, who everyone was telling me would easily kill me if we met in battle, who can levitate an entire temple and the bedrock it sit on… is apparently not all that powerful in combat. Hitting him repeatedly with an axe seemed to work just fine guys, but thanks for all the concern.

Pictured: A far more interesting and capable Villain. Also a headcrab.

Ultimately the game is 99% build up and 1% crushing disappointment. Everything in the game fools you into thinking that the story is building into an epic finale. It’s like watching the fuse on a firework slowly burn down, and you brace yourself for the spectacular light show you think is coming, only for the firework to fizzle pathetically to nothing.

2. None of Your Choices Matter

Aside from the horrible dialogue and awful contradictions that Mass Effect 3’s ending introduced, the other major complaint was the fact that in the end none of your choices really mattered. Whether you chose to kill or spare the Rachnid Queen, whether you sided with Krogan or the Salarians, none of it affected the ending. It was a perfectly valid criticism, ultimately nothing you did in Mass Effect had any effect on the ending. Now take that utter lack of meaningful impacts from your choices and multiply it by a hundred.

That’s how useless your choices are in Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Not only do none of your choices affect the ending…they don’t affect the game period. One of the early story missions asks you to choose between seeking the aid of the Mages or the Templars. I chose the Templars because I thought their anti-magic abilities would be the most useful against a mage like Corypheus (at the time I didn’t know he was less dangerous than the wildlife in this game.) When Corypheus attacked Haven, his Venatori were supported by rebel mages and then…well they’re never seen again. From then on it’s just Venatori and Red Templars, Templars corrupted by Red Lyrium. Okay, I can accept that maybe I didn’t save all the Templars and that they’d still show up…but the utter lack of mages? Where did they all go? You telling me they were wiped out at Haven? Every mage from every circle?

Bioware couldn’t even make their first meaningful choice in the game last beyond one mission. But at least it showed up in one mission, that’s more than I can say for the rest of the choices you’re given.

Another mission later on asks you whether you want the Grey Wardens to join the Inquisition. I exiled them from Orlais because I figured they were too susceptible to Corypheus’s darkspawn influences. So was my caution rewarded and a mutiny in my own army avoided? Or were my troops slaughtered by Darkspawn without the Grey Wardens to protect them? Uh, apparently neither , because as far as I can tell, not a single thing changed. I looked it up, even if you let them stay, all they do is show up at Skyhold. It’s a purely cosmetic choice.

Did you save Empress Celene or allow her to be killed so her more militaristic cousin could take over? Hint: It doesn’t matter, you get Orlais’s army no matter what.

Remember when building an army was a huge undertaking?

And while I wasn’t expecting every single operation on the war map to have a significant impact on the game, I did expect some kind of feedback. I helped Queen Anora of Ferelden broker a peace with Orlais. I sent my troops to combat an army of Darkspawn and hunt them down when they retreated into the mountains. I gave financial and medical aid to civilians affected by the Orlesian Civil War. These were big missions with far ranging implications, and surely those would have some impact.

Nope. You can go through the entire game without doing a single operation and it would’t affect the outcome, not even a single line of dialogue would change.

I paid special attention to the Keep missions because those, I thought for sure, would play an important part in the ending. Surely the ending would feature all out war with Corypheus and his army. Maybe even the Tevinter Empire would send its legions in support, and my strategic positions in the keeps would be the difference between victory and defeat. So I captured the Keeps, and did all the operations to make sure they were operating at maximum efficiency. I found a new source of water for the keep in the Western Approach and made sure they had good food to eat. I rebuilt the highway at Empris Du Lion so that troops could march through the area quickly.

And it didn’t matter, because the only thing Keeps do is operate as another campsite that you can fast travel to. They also have a merchant or two that will sell you some good stuff. But as for an impact on the story? Nope.

Welcome to the table of worthless bullshit.

So what about character side quests? Surely their approval would matter in the end. Cole, a spirit of Compassion, was worried that Corypheus might bind him. So I found an amulet to protect him, and then helped Compassion learn to forgive the man who killed the boy he couldn’t save. So did Corypheus attempt to bind Cole and impotently rage at me when he failed? Nope, as far as I can tell he never even made an attempt to do so.

And yet in the final meeting in Skyhold’s grand hall, Cole has the gall to say “Did you see? Corypheus tried to bind me and he couldn’t!”

No Cole, I didn’t see that. I would loved to have seen that. To see some kind of feedback from my choices.

The only choices that have any impact on the story are the ones from previous games. And it’s kind of impressive they managed to integrate so many of your previous choices into the game world. It’s just a shame that they couldn’t do the same thing for all the choices you make in the game you just spent nearly $70.00 on.

3. The Story is a DLC Marketing Tactic

I think the saddest part of the ending, is that I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. When my final objective was “Retire to your Quarters” I thought, Bioware you crafty Dog. This is a fake ending isn’t it? I’m going to retire to my room, and then my Inquisitor will wake up in the middle of the night as Skyhold is besieged by…someone. I didn’t even care who at that point, just tell that anemic boss fight wasn’t the ending. But no, I retired and the game gave me a final whimper as it gave me a couple of portraits explaining how my actions had consequences. Even that final ending monologue was pathetic compared to Dragon Age: Origins, at least Origins went through every choice you made and told you the fate of all the characters you got to meet. Inquisitions final monologue covers like 3 of the major choices in the story and maybe like 2 or 3 characters. That’s it.

Still, even as the credits rolled I thought, nah. Bioware couldn’t have fallen this far. No way. Mass Effect 3 had a bad ending, but surely the company hadn’t fallen this far from grace.

When I saw this after credits stinger, it suddenly all made sense. The whole, shamefully underwritten plot and story of Dragon Age: Inquisition was just a preamble to a series of DLC.

It was the video equivalent of this message.

Oh, so you didn’t like the ending? Well guess what, there was this far more interesting story going on in the background this whole time! But you’ll have to pay to see that one, because forking out $70.00 fucking dollars just isn’t enough to justify us giving you a good story. – EA Games, apparently

Well guess what Bioware and EA. Fuck you. If you couldn’t get a decent story written for the main game, what makes you think I’m going to trust your storytelling abilities in any of the undoubtedly long series of overpriced DLC adventures you have planned?

So in Conclusion…

Bioware took our criticisms of Mass Effect 3’s Red, Blue and Green endings by giving Dragon Age Inquisition only a single color ending.

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16 comments

I 100% agreed with you on the Mass Effect outline – lots of buildup, but no delivery. However, ME had none of the wider world building or characterisation that DA:I has. The wider map, which in ME3 was all just “scan planet for a war asset collectible” is time determined missions that open up little vingettes of story and flesh the world out more and do have an impact as the world goes along.

Also, having played along, enemies and supporting “dragons” to the big bad will change depending on who you choose to ally with (Templars or Mages) which does have an impact on the combat down the line.

Yes, the villain is the weak link and it seems not as epic. There is a “multiple choice” ending in terms of who the Divine is at the end, which is impacted by your actions and your ability to engage and expand your army of agents (which impacts the war table and what rewards / missions become available) is influenced by choices and how you react to your party members.

Now, Bioware has always been more character driven, with central plots always being rather generic. But DA:I is more of a step in the right direction. The choices relating to your DA: O and DA: II protagonists is commented on, giving more depth and isn’t “retconned” like ME3 which decided “No this is the way we want it”.

Yes, the war table isn’t quite as deep, but it is a step in the right direction.

The breadth of the world and the characters are MUCH better than ME3 and add more to the world. Is it perfect? No. But i would counter argue that choices impact more along the way and are more akin to DA: O’s ending slide choices, in terms of outcome.

Also, the choices have far more impact on the characters as the story goes along, much more influenced by how the Witcher handled decisions as the plot progressed during the story.

Also, you haven’t mentioned the judgements and incidental stories as the game goes on. Yes, there’s DLC, but I would definitely say this is a better game than ME3 – I frankly found the ending segment as a whole a gross missed opportunity. Over most of the game, actually. So far, DA:I has given exploration, interesting story and character vignettes, tricky decisions in the moment and a better developed character interaction method (Approval and disapproval etc)

I have yet to finish but I have spoiled myself on certain plot details, so we will see how it all wraps up. I would argue that the DA universe is structured differently to ME3, considering that ME had ONE protagonist across the games who you were invested in. DA doesn’t, but it has a world which is still impacted massively according to your choices: Hawke, the King of Ferelden, Loghain, who turns up, which missions are available, which missions aren’t are all impacted across the game.

ME 3 was the crescendo and the final chapter, which it failed at. DA:I is the expanding narration, so is not in the same vein and does a good job building things. Its denument is less climactic third movie and more season cliffhanger to a TV series.

Mass Effect 1 had tons of world building. There were planets all over the place that you could explore. And then everyone complained about the exploration parts so Bioware removed them in ME2 and replaced with horrible planet scanning which Bioware changed for ME3 all the while failng to ask why no one liked the planet exploring in ME1. If they had they would have found out that the problem was simply that the art assets were overused and that the planets needed to be flatter and all the points of interest needed to highlighted on the map so you could find them more easily. But the planet exploration was an extremely important part of ME1 as it helped to develop the game world and setting, it helped to make the game world tangible.

DA:I was a terrible game in every aspect, except for its pretty graphics. The individual stories were terrible and were based on every character being a complete moron. Why do the mages agree to become Tevinter slaves when that was the very thing they were rebelling against in the first place? In fact Being a part of the Circle was a vastly better fate than being a Tevinter slave but Bioware wants you to believe that the mages will just now agree to be Tevinter slaves? F you Bioware. None of the companions stood out for me, and they weren’t even that likeable. Even the combat was terrible. At least ME3’s combat was far superior to ME2s and was actually enjoyable. And what the heck happened to the tactics from DA:O and DA2 and the spell combos from DA:O? Combat in DA:I basically just devolves into autoattacking and is incredibly boring as a result.

The maps, which are supposed to be the game’s saving grace and the biggest improvement over DA2, are a complete failure. All the maps are large but entirely empty and void of interesting or worthwhile experiences or anything to do, making them completely pointless.

I could see myself playing ME3 again, but I will never play DA:I again. In fact it took me 3 months to finish my first and only playthrough of DA:I because I disliked every single aspect of the game constantly stopped playing it whereas my first playthrough of ME3 took a single week as I played it nonstop.

Bioware clearly had a plan in place for ME3 as that game tied up all the big loose ends from ME1 and ME2, however DA:I reverses or ignores the lore and story developed between DA:O and DA2. Both of those games look at the Circle problem as being this huge buildup to a World War that was finally going to come to a head after the events in Kirkwall sparked the grand mage rebellion. But that rebellion is completely superfluous in DA:I. The mage rebellion goes from being what should have been the driving force behind the game’s plot to simply a coin throw to determine whether you see 5 mages or 5 templars during the cutscene when you seal the breach. And those mages or templars will never make another real appearance after that.

DA:I literally just throws out every single piece of lore and plot development from DA:O and DA2. It gets rid of the dragon soul from Morrigan’s baby, gets rid of Flemeth before she has an opportunity to be the major character that was being set up during DA:O and DA2 , tries to completely change how magic works (and magic is thus all over the place and now completely nonsensical and utterly stupid).

Now instead of Flemeth, an interesting and humorous character, you have Solas who is really just a wet blanket. What’s his motivation? Bioware isn’t certain, which is why he’s all over the place. Sometimes he acts like the current generation of elves aren’t worth saving (most of the time actually) and instead spends all his time talking about demons and spirits and how wouldn’t it be great if people lived side by side with demons and spirits? And then at the very end of the game he does an about face and decides that instead of working to advance the cause of spirits, he is now going to work to maybe advance the cause of the elves he was throwing under the rug for the majority of the game. Of course Solas is also a huge idiot. He decided that the best way to help the elves was to give his powerful orb thing to a clearly evil mage bent on destroying the world, a mage who comes from a society that regularly sacrifices and enslaves the elves Solas wanted to help. That’s just dumb.

Ultimately DA:I fails because Bioware put too little effort into making the game take its place in the series and too much effort into completely revamping the lore, the magic mechanics, and replacing all the important characters and events.

Instead of trying to call this DA:I, Bioware would have been better off simply creating a brand new franchise as that’s essentially what they did with DA:I. The Dragon Age moniker is completely wasted on this game which is in no way a true successor to DA:O or DA2.

Umm, no way DA:I is worse than ME 3 <_< I agree on some things, like Corypheus being rather generic, final boss fight being pretty anticlimactic and Corypheus being less impressive due to him being dlc boss. Wartable operations are also bit barebones when you consider that as elf you can accidentally kill off your clan and it won't be ever mentioned outside of the operation.

However, choices you make in the game affect what wartable operations you get in the first place and wartable operations have sometimes splitting branches depending on which advisor you choose. So to me, that is already pretty nice reactivity since I feel like I'm coordinating my organization's actions outside of little missions I'm doing. And its nice to order on wartable someone to be captured and then judge them on my big chair in the hold.

Side quest effects are rather small in retrospect I guess, but I still felt it was nice how doing quest affects enemy spawns, npc locations, npc dialog and sometimes other minor visible things. shrugs* Maybe I have low standards since I enjoyed it a lot that pretty much every major quest has characters talking about your choices, and in some cases it even depended which companions you took with you to the mission. I guess to me the game felt far more reactive than any other bioware game I have ever played(which is all of them) <_<

Honestly, I feel like this article is sensationalist clickbait "Oh, the guy who dissected the ME 3's ending has bad things to say about DA:I's ending, check it out!" since game was much more enjoyable and reactive than ME 3. Sure there were some bad points, but they'd have to be greater for that to be true. Besides, you can't really tell how much your choices affect the things unless you play the game twice, even if you can assume correctly they won't truly affect things as much as you would want.

What ending? I finished the game and all I saw was a set up for Dragon Age 4. There was no real conclusion, I just saved the world of Thedas and made some huuuuge changes to it and what do I get? Some bullet point style ending that lacks any real depth. And a lot of unanswered questions.

I get that some mystery is good if they are planning on another game and selling some dlc but I would like SOME kind of closure. Even ME3 gave me that. NWN 2 for example at least had more slides that summed up everyone’s journey and afterwards you really felt like your story had concluded. (Though the voice over actress wasnt Claudia Black so DA:I wins there at least) DA:I just left me feeling like it should of said “to be continued in part 4”

That said DA:I really was a fantastic game and I really really enjoyed it. A lot. I think I have 137 hours clocked now and will likely add to that, I’m just disappointed they didn’t learn or were to arrogant to care about how fans feel over endings after the ME3 backlash.

Yeah, I’ve probably got 60 hours in DAI and I didn’t do even half the side quests. It’s a really good game. Just like Mass Effect 3, it was all really good until right up to the ending, where they just dropped the ball completely. I’ll have a more detailed breakdown of Dragon Age Inquisition coming up soon.

while some of your ideas are true, others are hardly a fact,,,for example the side mission where you get an amulet for cole does have an impact later in the game. on my second play i didnt do this side quest and at the final quest, cole wasnt available to join my part. i think that this was worth to note.

also,it is very obvious that the incomplete plot holes and unanswered questions were purposefully there for later DLCs……

but all of this is overshadowed by how amazing the gameplay and world details are, not including the tons of bugs at hand >.>

That’s interesting, I did a second playthrough and didn’t see Cole as unavailable at the ending. (Also you can power through the storyline in less that 15 hours if you ignore everything). Though Cole wasn’t in my group makeup the second playthrough, since I went with 2 mages, an archer and Blackwall as the tank, so it could be I just didn’t notice he was unavailable.

Two things (in addition to what was stated above) annoyed me about this ending:

1) “Hey looks, the bad guy is over there and is like, ok let’s fight. Cullen, prepare the forces to march…” “Sir, they’re still on their way back from the forest.” “What do you mean Cullen? I’ve done, like 10 side quests since this and the last quest. Did they get lost? Did they stop at McDragons?” “…..” “Cullen, I spent all game grinding bullcrap to build up a giant force, and you’re telling me that I can’t use my army against Badguybro because THEY’RE WALKING BACK?”

2) There was a classic 12 year old Dungeon Master mistake: have some cool NPCs, then make the plot about them. You’re just a long for the ride. Case and point: Morrigan. The Arbor Woods (stupid name, Arbor is latin for tree, “Tree woods”) mission is about her and she will whine the whole way if you don’t let her drink from the well (thankfully, I didn’t). You then get to the McGuffin, Flemmeth. This is a conversation for and about her and Morrigan. It’s these two talking, not you, and this is not if you drank from the well. God forbid you did (and you let her have the kid in the first game) in which you are almost totally side lined. You then get to watch Morrigan control the McGuffin that let’s her beat the villain (not in combat, but in the story).

I guess what bugged me was that I had no option to boot her from MY inquisition because, in the end, the plot was about a friendship between flemmeth and baldy and the resolution was for Morrigan, not me, not the inquisition, not my companions.

Also, the name Inquisition. This had nothing to do with an Inquisition. Apparently, this bugged me alone.

Yeah, the closest you came to the Inquisition actually acting like an inquisition was the Ballroom mission, where you actually had to sniff around and investigate who was the person on Corypheus’s payroll. But then they sabotaged that by making the villain unmask herself like a freaking scoobydoo villain for no apparent reason.

But yeah, now that you point it out, it is like the entire game is a giant resolution arc for Morrigan’s storyline while most of the inquisition stuff gets sidelined.

Thanks for your thoughts. I’ll have a more detailed analysis of DAI coming up this week.

You are very wrong about both games (ME3 and DA:I). Both games had horrible main plots so it was inevitable that the ending would also be horrible because how could it not inherit the problems that came before it?

Or are you going to argue that Kai Leng and the Illusive Man were amazing characters even though they only managed to win the day by relying on writer omnipotence while they themselves were actually incompetent and the player only lost because the writer was constantly removing the player’s agency. The same is true of DA:I. The only reason why any of your enemies are able to beat you is because you are constantly having your agency stolen from you. When Coryfish attacked Haven I had him dead to rights but the game took away my victory and made everyone pee their pants and cry and claim we lost just because the writer refused to acknowledge my victory and my superiority.

To quote ShamusYoung who summarized this more succinctly than I can, “It is the quintessential Deus Ex Machina: Suddenly, you are winning for no reason. Victory was taken from you by writer fiat. Now it’s being foisted on you by writer fiat….It’s the classic tabletop gaming trope: The entire game is just the author wanking off as he pits his Ultimate Evil Guy against His Ultimate Awesome Weapon. You win not because you were brave, strong, or resourceful, but because you did what you were told.”